Isn't fractional distillation only useful for liquids? The process would need some significant modification to extract thc from dry flowers. Without doing a lot research, the only thing I can suggest is to rig up a forced air heat gun leading into a condenser.

I was reading on another site and basically they took a cheapo dome style vape and just plugged the hose ends. This created a heater inside the globe without a way for air to escape. About 20 min of heating and then 20 min of letting the vapor sit in the globe. Then she opened the globe and scraped out the oil.

People were saying 10grams of bud was getting 1 gram of oil this way. Without solvents.

I have heard of extractions done this way usually for the purpose of an edible oil product. Every reference i have seen did their extraction the way you described DR. If i was going to do it though i would do as Bouldorado mentioned using a heat gun for a more even convection extraction and a condenser with a surface area easy to reclaim from.....

I was reading on another site and basically they took a cheapo dome style vape and just plugged the hose ends. This created a heater inside the globe without a way for air to escape. About 20 min of heating and then 20 min of letting the vapor sit in the globe. Then she opened the globe and scraped out the oil.

People were saying 10grams of bud was getting 1 gram of oil this way. Without solvents.

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That's very interesting. You'd think there would be an issue with back pressure, but apparently not. Although this method would create solvent-free oil, it may not taste the best. I say this because back when I had my EQ, a lot of reclaim would build up on the elbow joint. It was very potent oil but the flavor wasn't as good as bho.

That's very interesting. You'd think there would be an issue with back pressure, but apparently not. Although this method would create solvent-free oil, it may not taste the best. I say this because back when I had my EQ, a lot of reclaim would build up on the elbow joint. It was very potent oil but the flavor wasn't as good as bho.

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I wonder if the taste would be as bad as reclaim since its trapped in a closed system and not being inhaled.....

That's very interesting. You'd think there would be an issue with back pressure, but apparently not. Although this method would create solvent-free oil, it may not taste the best. I say this because back when I had my EQ, a lot of reclaim would build up on the elbow joint. It was very potent oil but the flavor wasn't as good as bho.

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Purity (in a health sense not THC content) > flavor to me personally. I can see why others would disagree. But for me I'd rather vape a bowl of ass flavor and be 100% sure to my anxious little brain that there are no solvents, than vape the best tasting bowl in the world with .001% chance of solvents. I'm certainly a minority there.

I'm very interested in this. I wish I had a cheapo dome vape to try this myself.

I have heard of extractions done this way usually for the purpose of an edible oil product. Every reference i have seen did their extraction the way you described DR. If i was going to do it though i would do as Bouldorado mentioned using a heat gun for a more even convection extraction and a condenser with a surface area easy to reclaim from.....

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I have a heat gun. Can you give a good example of what else I might need to get a clean well designed setup to try this? I might have to scale it back and try with 5 grams to see if I can get even .5 of extract this way.

When you say its been used for edible, would this not also be vapeable? To take it a step further this oil would be decarbed already wouldn't it? If so then one could probably put the tiniest dab of this oil into a capsule and have a very discreet and effective little backup laying around for when vaping is out of the question.

I have a heat gun. Can you give a good example of what else I might need to get a clean well designed setup to try this? I might have to scale it back and try with 5 grams to see if I can get even .5 of extract this way.

When you say its been used for edible, would this not also be vapeable? To take it a step further this oil would be decarbed already wouldn't it? If so then one could probably put the tiniest dab of this oil into a capsule and have a very discreet and effective little backup laying around for when vaping is out of the question.

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It would still be totally vapable. Yes the oil would be totally decarb'ed. Usually when people use this extraction method from what I've seen. Its people who don't want to purge for you solvents because of serious medical medical conditions. To create an edible oil to treat something like cancer or Alzheimer's similar to Rick Simpson oil.

As for a feasible DIY I've been pondering this since this was posted. The biggest issue I see is it that if you want to go totally solvent free your surface area that you're going to reclaim on needs to be large and flat. Where as the easiest to hook up to the heat gun seems like it would be you some sort of organic cotton as a filter for particulate matter. Then you use copper as your helat exchanging material inside of a makeshift condenser like a beer cooler with ice. Then using a shot or two of high proof liquor to reclaim from your tubing. Not totally solvent free but much easier to make your condenser with and still using everything thats food grade

I will keep on pondering its an interesting concept maybe I can think of something else......

Ps.. Excuse some of the editing errors. Voice recognition is not best on my droid and its a PITA to edit with. But the broad strokes are there.

^^I was pondering that myself, but your statement about a flat collector gave me an idea. What about a condenser that was made from two flat panes of glass, held together by something non conductive and air tight. Maybe a wood frame with a silicone sealant, but designed so you can easily take it apart and scrape the individual panes?

Also, another variable posibly affecting taste is time. Traditional vape reclaim (like with my old EQ) happened over the course of several months, while a vape collector would take only hours (or less). I imagine collected vapor would taste better.

^^I was pondering that myself, but your statement about a flat collector gave me an idea. What about a condenser that was made from two flat panes of glass, held together by something non conductive and air tight. Maybe a wood frame with a silicone sealant, but designed so you can easily take it apart and scrape the individual panes?

Also, another variable posibly affecting taste is time. Traditional vape reclaim (like with my old EQ) happened over the course of several months, while a vape collector would take only hours (or less). I imagine collected vapor would taste better.

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Reclaiming might be hard and seals would get contaminated with oil and would cut into efficiency. If it was panes fitted with GonG connections of some sort that would work well though. What about a small pressure oooker modded to accept vapor and sat in an ice bath?

Other thoughts...... Heat gun may have to operate on a low fan speed too maximize contact with condenser, or heat exchanger (HX) would have to be made larger too compensate (another advantage to a coil HX).......Convection heat would require a custom bowl of sort with a large surface area to get a decent amount for extraction. Other wise multiple loads would need to be made meaning more labor and making necessary a way to isolate your extraction chamber from your condenser.......

Do you know anything about why this particular kind of oil is associated with edible concentrates used for healing purposes? The place I read about this is sort of on the extreme natural almost hippy style forum (not in a disrespectful way at all), I just can't think of a way to describe it so I hope that is not offensive. Its very organic and natural and "vibes" used. I'm not saying they are wrong, personally I believe the stories of healing. I just don't want to hear about the "vibes" all the time. I'm really interested in the science behind the healing, and what makes the "rick simpson" stuff different from any old hash? I'm new to this aspect of medicinal cannabis. I usually only learn what I need when I need it, but this seems like it is something worth trying to understand IMO.

All edibles are good for you the oil just allows you to get a higher dosage of healing cannabinoids in. Patients with serious ailments may take upwards if 1g of oil daily. When treating things like Alzheimer's and cancer. The cannabinoids along with all their usual healing properties affect your endocannabinoid system, pineal, and acidity levels helping to return your body to a more natural homeostasis. Hers some info

I had just about given up hope that we would ever find out why the oil worked so well for all these different medical conditions. But recently a lady named Batya Stark has provided me with what I think is all the missing pieces to the puzzle.
She has sent me a great deal of information about melatonin and the pineal gland which produces it. It seems that the pineal gland is in the driver’s seat when it comes to healing our bodies.
The melatonin it produces is an essential part of healing. When the function of the pineal gland is impaired, it produces much less melatonin and therefore we become sick and diseased.
Studies have been released that show people suffering from cancer have low levels of melatonin in their bodies. Also studies have shown that just smoking hemp can raise the melatonin levels in our bodies. So one can only imagine what the oil that is in a concentrated state can do to increase melatonin levels.
As we age we acidify and cancer thrives in an acidic environment. So bringing the body´s PH level up is very important when you are suffering from cancer and many other conditions. The oil works to do this but also other things can be of great benefit. Simple things like baking soda and lemon juice can raise the body´s PH very rapidly.
Tumors are simply the symptom of an underlying condition that is present in the bodies of people who are suffering from cancer. Indeed this underlying condition must be treated to cure the cancer and prevent it from returning.
Melatonin travels to every cell in our bodies and is the key to good health. And I am not just talking about treating cancer, it seems that melatonin levels are important to treat all conditions. Now all you have to do is connect the dots like Batya and I have; it all adds up.
Hemp oil promotes full body healing and raises melatonin levels thousands of times higher than normal. When the pineal gland produces vast amounts of melatonin, it causes no harm to the body but it is very hard on the condition you are suffering from and indeed can eliminate it. From what I can gather, all this along with your PH being raised while the oil is detoxifying your body we think causes the healing effect of this medication. Ref:

I think you'll want to make some kind of closed air system. Have the cold air and left over vapor loop around and go back through the heat source and herb. Run it for a while and eventually, all the oil will be condensed...somewhere. Maybe on a fan...that would suck. I don't think a heat gun would work to well for this, but something could. I'm thinking a glass heat chamber with nichrome heating element. Who knows though? Might not need a fan. If you had the thing verticl. Heat chamber on one side, condensor on the other side...that gasses in the system should circulate as they cool and heat up. Air heats up, rises, pushing air into the condenser. That cold air falls, pushing cold air into the heating chamber. Could be completely closed...all glass, no solvent, no dirty air from hot electronics.

I think you'll want to make some kind of closed air system. Have the cold air and left over vapor loop around and go back through the heat source and herb. Run it for a while and eventually, all the oil will be condensed...somewhere. Maybe on a fan...that would suck. I don't think a heat gun would work to well for this, but something could. I'm thinking a glass heat chamber with nichrome heating element. Who knows though? Might not need a fan. If you had the thing verticl. Heat chamber on one side, condensor on the other side...that gasses in the system should circulate as they cool and heat up. Air heats up, rises, pushing air into the condenser. That cold air falls, pushing cold air into the heating chamber. Could be completely closed...all glass, no solvent, no dirty air from hot electronics.

cool idea.

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I like how you think dannkk thanks for joining in. I was thinking about something similar yesterday but you got me thinking, a glass encapsulated heating element like a ceramic element would work well in an application like that probably. It would then be isolated from the air path and the oil.

What if you placed the bud in a vacuum chamber? Would that lower the boiling temp, therefore requiring less heat, or does that science only apply to liquids? If the vacuum chamber would work,you could simply have a passive heating element, (ie, a hot plate) and then have the vapor collect on the chamber, assuming it was glass and colder than ambient air temp.

I think that's correct, Bouldorado. I know they advertise the heating chamber in the Cloud as being low pressure, which lowers the vape temps. I imagine vacuum would lower it further(it's much lower pressure).

Thinking strickly off the cuff here... if you could create a vacuum in a catch container that could then be connected to a vaporizer the vacuum container valve could be opened to directly pull air through a vape device and collect it in the container that could then be chilled to cause the vapor to condense on the walls...

I would like to try connecting a long glass tube with a water cooled jacked to a digital Volcano so that I can distill vapors of various temperatures starting very low. The vapor would all condense before exiting the glass tube. The oil in the tube could be removed by using pure ethyl alcohol to dissolve it. I know this isn't a solvent free way to produce it, but using alcohol at room temperature should not have any impact on the taste and makes it much easier to reclaim the oil. Would be interesting to see the effect of the different temperature oil extractions.

I don't know if vacuum will work to volatize the oils I may be speaking out my ass here with out looking up some references but just off the top of my head I know lots of people apply heat during deep vac purges some as high 140* while in a deep vac. Now water which boils at 212* will evaporate with out heat supplementation at ambient temps in a deep vacuum. I imagine adding 140* of heat past the boiling point of water in a vac would be sufficient to volatize the oils from the plant substrate. I do know that mineral oils (refrigerant oils) in a deep vacuum are unaffected even in the 250 micron (really deep vacuum) ranges. It would be my semi edmucated guess that vacuum doesn't affect oils in the same way as liquid.

I would like to try connecting a long glass tube with a water cooled jacked to a digital Volcano so that I can distill vapors of various temperatures starting very low. The vapor would all condense before exiting the glass tube. The oil in the tube could be removed by using pure ethyl alcohol to dissolve it. I know this isn't a solvent free way to produce it, but using alcohol at room temperature should not have any impact on the taste and makes it much easier to reclaim the oil. Would be interesting to see the effect of the different temperature oil extractions.

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Might as well go with a coiled glass tube if you're going to reclaim it with ethanol, so as to maximize internal surface area. If you're going to use ethanol, you might as well use the dual solvent method and blast/soak the bud with butane first. Get most of the butane out, dissolve it in ethanol, and then vac purge that; this would give you some damn pure oil. Another option is co2 oil, but I don't know how easy (or safe) that is to make at home.

Also, I don't think it's the temperature of alcohol that affects taste, but rather the solubility of terpenes in ethanol.

Might as well go with a coiled glass tube if you're going to reclaim it with ethanol, so as to maximize internal surface area. If you're going to use ethanol, you might as well use the dual solvent method and blast/soak the bud with butane first. Get most of the butane out, dissolve it in ethanol, and then vac purge that; this would give you some damn pure oil. Another option is co2 oil, but I don't know how easy (or safe) that is to make at home.

Also, I don't think it's the temperature of alcohol that affects taste, but rather the solubility of terpenes in ethanol.

While we are talking about co2 extractions (finally something I can jump back in on), I've heard that many "Co2" extractions are really just BHO with the intent to bypass some "no man made solvents used" law in some medical state.

Does this really happen? I understand CO2 extractions are quite the heavy investment to have, is there any way to tell for sure? I don't seem to get along well with butane well from past experiences. I seem to get pretty nasty reactions with as little as using a vapor genie, or vaping or even smoking BHO that was WELL purged. Strangely enough the iolite never created issues way back when I had that.

I'm hoping now that medical has passed in my state (but hasn't started yet) I'll be able to get some bubble hash/pressed kief. I don't think I mind ISO hash either though. No issues with any time I've home made ISO oil.

I think that was a big plus for me with the vapor distillation method, possible to do without using any solvents at all.

If the chamber was a glass tube could you not fashion a sort of syrnge plunger for it... Two effects: one, it would allow you to sort of "direct draw" kinda like a vapor lung, then when fully extended it would allow you to push all the oil out the end if it was warmed after condensing the vapor in a cooler...

Not too hard to construct either, nor difficult to aquire parts.
glass tube
Plunger could be constructed of varous materials, a gasket will be needed.
pushrod for plunger.

I would like to try connecting a long glass tube with a water cooled jacked to a digital Volcano so that I can distill vapors of various temperatures starting very low. The vapor would all condense before exiting the glass tube. The oil in the tube could be removed by using pure ethyl alcohol to dissolve it. I know this isn't a solvent free way to produce it, but using alcohol at room temperature should not have any impact on the taste and makes it much easier to reclaim the oil. Would be interesting to see the effect of the different temperature oil extractions.